A blog on jiu jitsu, grappling, judo, and wrestling: from competition mindset to technique analysis.

My Grapplers Quest Experience in Asbury Park

Yesterday, I competed at the 2011 Grapplers Quest World Championships in Asbury Park, NJ. Where better to hold the World Championships than in New Jersey? Take that, southern California! 😉 I won my division, all with submissions.

Overall, I wish I had a few more matches 😉 Next time, I’ll be sure to sign up for both no gi and gi divisions.

I genuinely enjoy Grapplers Quest tournaments. As long as you go in ready to potentially wait a long time before and in-between fights, you will have a great experience. I think many people come to the tournament not prepared for that wait and so sometimes look back at the tournament as a crappy time, but it really is not. Jiu jitsu is not just about the six minutes on the mat, but also about the hours of patiently waiting off the mat.

Here are some videos of the matches:

As a side note, there were a lot of top level competitors in attendance, some fighting, some not: JT Torres, DJ Jackson, Mike Bannon, Drew Vogel, Travis Stevens, Zak Maxwell, Ryan Hall, David Bass, the Russian Bear Rustam Chsiev, and many more.

The advanced divisions attract some killers, so I look forward to competing there in the coming months and years.

Travis did 5 divisions. Basically he did everything. I didn’t see him go for a throw once. I watched about 4 of his matches, and he pulled close guard on all of them, and then played a dynamic open guard game. It seemed like he was experimenting a lot and did not mind losing. I saw him tap to a heel hook against a guy he was dominating. I think this was a tournament for him to just play around with different types of ground game. One thing he was clearly working on is not letting people pass his open guard, and he did that very well, always threatening the omoplata / triangle combo.

Anyway, it was good to see him open up in a different sport and not be concerned about winning or losing, while not using his obvious judo advantage.

That is pretty cool, I would like to have seen some of his matches. He serves as a great example of what cross training can lead to. I saw some of his groundwork during the Northeastern tournament and I could tell he had really good groundwork from the very little I saw.